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15.7.05

Courgettes, cats and books

We've had bad luck with courgettes in the past, so I was thrilled to see some fruits already...

The tomatoes are making up for lost time - I keep forgetting they're the standard 'Money Maker' variety, and won't grow as big as some of the bush species we've tried previously.

You cannot move in our little hovel without tripping over cats or books. There are thousands of them - books - and four of them - cats. The books are piled behind doors, on chairs, cupboards, and as a last resort - up every available wall. Here is our big ginger female Clover, spilling over the carpet beneath towers of old children's books.

I wonder how Americans got into the habit of calling this particular vegetable "zucchini." Probably borrowed from the Italian-American immigrants who cooked extensively with it.

In Utah it's said that you know none of your neighbors like you if you have to *buy* zucchini in the summer. The hot weather is good for most squash, and anybody who plants even one zucchini usually ends up with a bumper crop, which is foisted off on friends, neighbors, strangers, anyone who will accept it. Baskets full of zucchini have been left anonymously on doorsteps, like foundling children.